Personality change goals and plans as predictors of longitudinal trait change in young adults: A replication with an Iranian sample

Goals and plans for changing one’s personality traits have been found to be commonly held, particularly in young adults. Evidence for whether such goals and plans can predict actual trait change is mixed. The current study replicated and extended the methodology of a previous study to investigate whether trait change goals and plans predict change over a year in a sample of Iranian students. It was found that goals and plans before and after the 12-month period predicted longitudinal change in Openness to Experience, but no association was found for other traits. To explore whether this relationship between goals and change in Openness to Experience is replicable, further research with samples of differing ages and cultures is needed.     

Risk as a Moderator of the Effects of Prevention Programs for Children from Divorced Families: A Six-Year Longitudinal Study

Program by risk interactions were assessed to evaluate whether the long-term effects of two preventive interventions for children from divorced families were moderated by baseline levels of risk. Six-year prospective relations between childhood (ages 9-12) and adolescence (ages 15-19) were examined in 68 children who comprised the control group of a randomized trial. Analyses indicated that two childhood variables predicted multiple adolescent outcomes: environmental stressors and externalizing problems. A risk index composed of these 2 variables was highly predictive of internalizing and externalizing problems, competence, substance use, and mental disorder 6 years later. Analyses of the full sample (N = 218) indicated that program effects were greater for children with higher risk scores and that the programs attenuated the relation between risk and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems, competence, and mental disorder.     

Dimensions of social identification with the team as predictors of the coach-created training climate in rugby: A group-actor partner interdependence modelling perspective

Recently, social identity approach has been giving stimulating insights in leadership in sport, considering social identification as a consequence regarding leadership processes. Nonetheless, social identity theory fundamentally posits social identification as a subjacent parameter of cognitions implied in the frame of interpersonal and intergroup relations. The current study aimed to enrich the existing literature by investigating athletes’ team identification as a predictor of the perception of coach-created climate. French male rugby union players (N = 248) completed an online survey measuring the multidimensionality of their social identification to the team, and their perception of the coach-created climate in terms of empowering and disempowering motivational climate. Using Group Actor-Partner Interdependence Modelling, the analyses revealed that the perception of the climate as empowering was driven by high scores on ingroup ties, especially when teammates’ ingroup ties scores were low. Team’s ingroup affect and cognitive centrality resulted in lower perception levels of the empowering climate. Neither player's ingroup ties nor cognitive centrality predicted the perception of the climate as empowering, and when player’s ingroup affect fitted into the group, his perception of a disempowering motivational climate decreased when ingroup affect score was high. The results are mainly discussed to the light of intergroup permeability by underlying the importance of considering social identification as a predictor of the perception of coach-athletes’ relationship. Some practical applications are put forward along with future directions for research on coach-athletes’ relationship. Especially, this study points out the importance of considering the social identity approach of leadership as a transactional relationship encapsulated in a mutual influence between the ingroup member social identification and that of the team as a whole.